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Hard Rolls

Today's experiment. I got tired of chasing hard rolls for my husband's lunches and these worked out well. I rolled 4 oz of dough and put three in each oval brotform to rise. Then baked them in oval clay bakers for 30 mins and an additional 5 mins uncovered to darken. Egg white/water wash with sesame. Here's the recipe:

Can time between Bulk Fermentation and Proofing be exchanged

I frequently get into situations where I have dough on the counter and I will be out of the house at the time to do a step, and this makes me wonder if you can substitute time for final proofing with time for bulk fermentation and vice versa. For instance, if I will be gone when it is time to end bulk ferment and shape into loaves, and so leave the bulk ferment to go long, can I make up for this by cutting short the proofing. In practice I have done this several times, and sometimes my bread comes out badly but many variables other than this in particular may account for that. I am talking about naturally leavened bread that might have a combined bulk ferment, rest, proof period of say six hours. I know this must be wrong, wrong, wrong (if sometimes unavoidable) but I would like to understand the theory. Thanks. -Varda

Irish Soda Bread for St. Patrick's Day!

Today I made Irish Soda Bread to enjoy with our St. Patrick's Day dinner! I've listed the ingredients and if you would like to see photos of step by step instructions they are on my blog Here. Making soda bread, takes a little practice. The list of ingredients are what i used today, I added a little extra flour, while gently mixing the dough and used a heavily floured board to shape the dough.

More Recent Baking & Latest Book Update

So the book is moving along the publishing process. Editing is finished, the MS has gone to the page designer and we're now working on finishing up the photos and the cover.

Amazing how much work goes into making a book, beyond the writing. Brad, our editor, told me that we needed more bread photos, since the illustrations at this point are heavily weighted towards cakes, cookies and pastries, so over the weekend I made some onion pockets and Kaiser rolls (see below for results). In the next couple of weeks, there will be lots of rye breads, from black pumpernickels to marble ryes, corn ryes and traditional NY Jewish ryes, along with lots and lots of challahs showing different braids ... so it's gonna be a busy time.

We're still looking at summer, 2011 publication, with most of the publicity (that's another story -- press releases, book fairs, signings, etc) to come in the fall, although our publisher, Camino Books is going to be promoting the book in May at BookExpo America in New York City.

So it's all drawing closer, and we're starting to get excited about it.

So in the meantime, here are some samples of things to come. Interesting thing is that both of these rolls use the same Medium Vienna dough formula, with the difference being that the onion pockets only ferment for 45 minutes and proof for 1 hour, while the Kaisers ferment for 2 hours and proof for 1 1/2-2 hours, so they're nearly at full proof. As a result, the Kaisers are much leaner and crustier than the onion pockets.

Berlin Bakeries, breads, ingredients?

I'm going to be in Berlin for a week (East near Alexanderplatz for a few days tourism, then in the South West near Dahelm for a few days at a conference) starting this weekend (March 19).

I know that if I was going to Paris I'd have a longish list of bakeries to which I'd need to make pilgrimages.

Do any of you TFLers know of bakeries in Berlin that one really should visit? If I'm seeking out a Werzelbrot (related to Pain a l'Ancienne, I'm told), are there sources?

Or are there breads that are available in Berlin that might be impossible to get elsewhere? What characteristics (of bread or establishment) should one look for, when seeking out a Volkornbrot or a Werzelbrot, for instance, to distinguish an excellent one from a mediocre one?

I also like to look for unusual and interesting local cheeses and other bread accompaniments or ingredients when I'm in a new place. Recommendations on this are welcome too.

Introducing myself and my vision ^_^

I am an entreprenuer at heart, and every hobby of mine is always thought of as a possible business opportunity. I'm a full-time mother, student, and housekeeper. On the side I compete with my horse, teach my son dirt-bike racing, and try to boycott the corporate giants by making as much of my families diet from scratch!

I love baking~ my son's birthday cake was such a hit... gluten and dairy free... that mother's began asking me to bake birthday cakes for them. I also have been experiementing with different bread recipes/ techniques and have a real passion for it. My mother-in-law is on a strict, gluten-free diet, so I began trying bread without the craveable wheat-gluten.

So my latest business vision is to start a desireable bread bakery, with the possibility of goodies to be sold at local coffee stands (which there are a lot of around here, near Seattle!). The closest full-scale bakery is 15 miles away and there is a Harvest Wheat store about 10 miles away, so I feel like I would have an advantage.

Gluten-free and whole-some ingredients would be some of my selling points. It seems as though there is a lot of hog-wash around making and selling out of your home. I don't have a lot of start-up cash right now... the reason to start small. Would it be worthwhile to begin by selling to family and friends, then to outreach with a local kitchen?

The plan is to stock up on ingredients from Oregon (there is a good retailer for gluten-free flours) and keep good records (the business side of me). If my vision begins to look promising then I could sell at the many local farmer's markets around and possibly sell to some of the local-minded stores.

Any insight is always helpful. I've just began the feasability research of this plan so I'm not 100% ready to invest! ;-)

Revisiting NKB from Jim Lahey & "My Bread"

Recently we have had a few posts on people having issues getting the No Knead Bread to turn out a wonderful as it should. Jim Lahey has just published a new book called "My Bread" that I thought might be fun to take a look at. It isn't an expensive book at $16.60 and has many variations on his original recipe as well as many popular variations of offerings at the Sullivan Street Bakery.

I thought I would start with the basic formula which is all Bread Flour. It almost came to pass but at the last minute I swapped out 5% of white for rye. I love what a small amount of rye does to a simple white flavor. All of Lahey's formulas call for 400 grams of flour and 300 grams of water and 2% salt. The variable is the yeast which runs from 1-3 grams depending on the additions. The resultant hydration is 75%.

One concern about the KNB process is that the chance of mixing a smooth silky dough with no lumps is diminished by minimal mixing and no kneading. After my initial mix, I went to check the dough after an hour and found many clumps of partially hydrated dough. I know that these clumps will result in inconsistency in the crumb. So, I deviated from the script and did a frissage, (squishing the dough with the heel of your hand while sliding it across the counter) which broke up the clumps. Now I have a smooth cool dough that will set at room temperature for at least 12 hours.

Somewhere along the way, the NKB process took a turn towards what I would call normal breads in that Lahey now wants us to do a second fermentation after a brief shaping. The book calls for flouring a towel and setting the bread in a bowl to "proof". I used a linen lined basket and let it proof for 2 hours.

Interestingly, the procedure calls for the final ferment (proof) to be done seams down and baked seams up. No slashing is called for so the bread expands on the weakness of the bottom seams from shaping. It worked pretty well on the two loaves I have done although I would have liked a better spring.

I baked the loaf in the Lodge Combo Cooker, 15 minutes covered and 15 open at 460F. The internal was just over 203F. I didn't get the wildly open crumb structure that is shown in the book image but it's very appropriate for the bread, and delicious.

There are several very interesting recipes in Chapter Three "Specialties of the House" that are on my to-do list. The Italian Stecca with tomatoes and garlic pressed in the top of a stick. Then the Beyond water section, there are several interesting selections. The carrot bread looks like it would be fun and tasty. It uses home made juice extracted from carrots for hydration. So here is my first crack at the new "My Bread".

An experiment with multigrain

Hello, Today's bake was an experiment with multigrain, to see the difference between baking in a cold dutch oven, versus baking on my firebrick baking stone. I've seen so many successful dutch oven bakes here on TFL - I wanted to give it a try!

The result: Very tasty! if not exactly pretty.The baking stone loaf rose up an extra 1/2" compared to the 'cold dutch oven' loaf, which spread out more & didn't have as much oven spring/bloom from scoring. Other variables: shaping was harder for the dutch oven loaf (fighting a sticky dough), and the dutch oven loaf was baked at a slightly lower temperature.

Crumb shot is from the 'cold dutch oven' loaf. The bottom loaf was baked on the baking stone.

I tasted a heavenly sourdough bread with sunflower, poppy and flax seeds this past week - I wanted to try and recreate that flavor - so this is the combination of seeds I used for this multigrain. The sunflower seeds were not toasted prior to soaking.

Weights, in grams, for two big boules:

Levain

Soaker

Dough

Total

Baker's %

Bread flour

336

336

32%

Red Fife 75% whole wheat flour

200

432

632

59%

75% sifted rye flour

96

96

9%

Rye meal

96

96

9%

Water

200

112

673

985

93%

Salt

2

23

25

2.35%

Starter

30

30

2.8%

Mixed seeds

100

100

9%

Levain (7 hour build at 80F)

430

Soaker (7 hour soak)

214

Total

430

214

2300

2300

*also added approximately 1 teaspoon of barley malt syrup when mixing this dough.The ingredients are based on Chad Robertson's Tartine Whole Grain Seeded Bread as featured In The News here on TFL (page 3), and Didier Rosada's Whole Grain Bread as featured on modern-baking.com. I am grateful to both of these talented bakers for their formulas!

Mixing, fermenting and retarding were as per Mr. Roberton's method, except I held back 90g of water to mix in with the salt and seeds after autolyse (double hydration used in Mr. Rosada's method).Ingredients (levain, increased whole wheat flour, rye meal) were inspired by Mr. Rosada's formula.The dough was retarded in bulk form for 12 hours, after a 3.5 hour bulk ferment at 80F.The boules were shaped cold from the fridge; both proofed for one hour (one loaf in the dutch oven and one in a banneton).The dutch oven was covered and placed directly on an oven rack in an oven preheated for 20 minutes at 500F. Temperature was reduced to 450F after loading the oven. The dutch oven lid was removed after 20 minutes.The other loaf was baked on the stone with steam after the stone was preheated at 500F for 1 hour. Temperature was reduced to 460F after loading the oven.Loaves baked for 45 minutes, then were left in oven for 10 minutes with oven off and oven door ajar.

I think this is one of the tastiest breads I've made. I really like the energy savings the dutch oven baking method provides.Next time I'll try preheating the dutch oven and see how the oven spring is.

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